Treatment of tumours in cancer patients can be performed using several approaches, ranging from minimally invasive approaches such as brachytherapy to surgical approaches where the full organ containing the tumour is removed. Less invasive, focal therapies are gaining popularity due to improvements in early detection and screening, and the potentially reduced side-effects.
The workflow from cancer diagnosis till treatment consists of several stages. A biopsy is usually performed during the diagnostic stage to assess the tumour type and provide a score on the cancer extent. The biopsy is usually taken at multiple locations, and a global score is generated. Several approaches are used to produce this global score:
1. millimeters of cancer per core
2. total millimeters of cancer among all cores
3. percentage of cancer per core
4. total percentage of cancer in the entire specimen
5. number of positive cores
6. fraction of positive cores (number of positive cores and total cores)
U.S. Pat. No. 7,831,293B2 describes a method of defining a biological target for treatment. This document describes a method, wherein a detectable marker is left at a biopsy location. This marker is used to correlate histopathological data with functional imaging. Because the data set used to produce a tumour treatment plan can distinguish and differentiate the specific pathology and tumour progression or aggressiveness of different regions of the target tissue, the treatment plan can be used to direct therapy to different regions of discrete biological target volume tissue at different intensities. The pathologically defined points for tumour are correlated to a functional study (e.g. MRSI, SPECT, PET or optical biopsy) such that positive findings on the functional image can serve as a known marker for known disease sites. If the functional study is able to detect these areas of heretofore occult tumour foci, then other areas showing activity on the functional study can be treated as representing additional occult tumour foci, and thereby used to define a biological target volume for treatment.